GPL begins mission to beautify eight city walls

District Collector Archana Patnaik painting the compound wall of the powerhouse at Tatabad in Coimbatore, on Sunday as Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan looks on. —Photo: S. Siva Saravanan

On Sunday, eight teams started their eight-day mission to beautify eight walls in the city. They would complete the project by next Sunday. The initiative titled Graffiti Premier League has been initiated by the Coimbatore Corporation, district administration and My City Clean City (MC3) Trust.

District Collector Archana Patnaik launched the drive by painting a portion of the wall at the Tatabad powerhouse, in the presence of Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan. The founder of the trust C. Kishore said it had beautified close to 15 walls in the city in the last one year. However, within a short period, the walls were pasted with posters and advertisement paintings.

With the joint initiative now, steps have been taken to ensure that the paintings remain on the walls.

“Our initiative started with a group of eight members who started cleaning walls and painting them to beautify the city. The membership gradually increased to 180 youth, who spent hours to beautify long stretches of walls. But, days after our effort we saw movie posters and political party posters and paintings on the walls,” he said.

Mr. Kishore added this prompted them to team up with the corporation and the district administration to ensure that the next effort – Graffiti Premier League – would not go in vain. In GPL, eight teams have been given one wall each at various places in the city.

The teams could decide on the duration for which they work, but complete the graffiti by May 10.

The walls where the thematic graffiti drive is expected to be completed on that day are Government Arts College Road, Brooke Bond Road, RTO Road, Fun Mall Road, Lawley Road and Cowley Brown Road. The themes on which the paintings would be done are heritage and culture, monuments, wildlife, landmarks of Coimbatore, Tamil, festivals, modern art and seasons.

R. Ravindran, secretary of Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore, who is part of a team said that the teams will be painting walls for a stretch of about four km. Other teams participating in GPL include Siruthuli, Young Indians and a few colleges.

On completion, the corporation will declare the eight walls as ‘no poster zones’. Boards warning action against violators will also be placed at the spots. “The corporation will give away prizes to the team that comes out with best graffiti,” he added.